Cheerio!

Well, here I am in England! This trip has been nothing short of an adventure so far. I left Cincinnati at 8 PM on Wednesday night. I sat next to an older British couple who had been traveling around the western US, ending in Vegas. The guy suggested some places that I should visit and also told me that after spending six months in Britain I'll know why they spent thousands of years conquering the world trying to find sun. I watched Mamma Mia, ate dinner (pasta, salad, bread and a brownie) and attempted to sleep but didn't have much luck between the incredible amount of turbulence and a couple of screaming babies. I'm usually bad at sleeping on transportation, though.

Both of my bags arrived, customs decided to risk letting me into their country, and I found the person I was supposed to meet at the airport, aka the nicest staff member at Sussex, aka James from the International Office. It threw me off more to see the driver on the opposite side of the car than it did to drive on the opposite side of the street (maybe I would have felt differently if I were driving!).

It's odd to see Sussex as a whole campus when I'm used to seeing fragmented pictures in brochures. I swear all of the buildings look identical, even more than at Wash U. I'm in Kulukundis House with three flatmates, two of whom are named Amy. I've met two of the three so far and they're really nice and happy to have a full house again (there was no one in my room last semester). One of them (I'm going to have to figure out everyone's last names so it's not confusing when I talk about them) is thinking about studying at Purdue next semester.

The jetlag hasn't been bad (Brighton is five hours ahead), but I'm still tired. My time here has mostly been a blur of meetings and other orientation activities. It's weird to meet all of these people and not know who your friends will end up being. There are six of us here from Wash U, so it's nice to have some familiar faces even though I don't actually know any of the girls that well. Tonight there is a welcome reception, tomorrow night is dinner in Brighton (I'm actually in Falmer, which is about 20 minutes outside of Brighton), and Sunday is a guided tour of Brighton with free time afterwards. I'm glad to have Internet, and I bought some push pins and poster stickies so that I can decorate my room (I have more bulletin board space), but I still need to buy a phone that I can use for local calls and pick up a few things that I forgot at home (I was surprised to find out that there is nowhere on campus to buy a hairbrush - yes, I managed to bring BOTH sets of camera chargers but forget a hairbrush - but the more I thought about it, I don't know if they sell those at Wash U, either).

I'm somewhat overwhelmed but optimistic, and I miss you all. I'll write more after classes start.